LTE is an abbreviation of Long Term Evolution. The LTE is also commonly referred to as 3.9G, which has a data downloading capability of 100 Mbps and is considered as a mainstream technology in evolution from 3G to 4G. The LTE improves and enhances an air access technology in 3G, and uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) as a unique standard for evolution of a wireless network of the LTE. Currently, the LTE evolution is developing from Rel-8, Rel-9, and Rel-10 to Rel-11 and beyond Rel-11. From Rel-8 to Rel-10, basically, a loose-coupling relationship exists between evolved NodeBs (eNB), and limited by a delay of loose-coupling backhaul (backhaul), interference coordination between LTE neighboring cells can only be half-static coordination, and a physical resource block (PRB) is used as a frequency-domain resource granularity.
For example, an LTE system defines an inter-cell interference coordination technology in Rel-8, where two interference coordination methods are defined in uplink (UL). One method is an active interference coordination method using high interference indication (HII), that is, an eNB sends forecasted high or low interference sensitivity of each physical resource block to a target cell, for example, a neighboring eNB; the eNB of the target cell should try to avoid scheduling an edge user equipment (UE) on a resource with high interference. Another method is a passive interference coordination method using a overload indication (OI), that is, an eNB classifies interference, which is high or low, suffered in each physical resource block PRB within a system bandwidth of the eNB, and then sends the classified interference to an eNB of a target cell; and the eNB of the target cell will consider the interference when performing scheduling. An interference coordination method with relative narrowband transmit power (RNTP) is defined for downlink (DL) in LTE. A source eNB sends a message to the eNB of the target cell; and in each PRB, 1 bit is used to indicate whether transmit power of the eNB is lower than a set threshold in the RNTP or indicate that the transmit power is not limited. A target eNB considers this constraint when performing scheduling.
The foregoing interference coordination technology in the prior art has the following disadvantages:
1) Priorities of a control channel and a data channel cannot be differentiated effectively. When the control channel and the data channel share an area of the data channel, for example, when an enhanced/extended physical downlink control channel (ePDCCH) and a PDSCH share an area of the PDSCH, for example, when a control channel with a high priority and a data channel are placed together, resources which are used to transmit the control channel and resources which are used to transmit the data channel cannot be further differentiated according to an existing practice of the system; or when only a resource with a high priority is used to transmit the control channel, effective interference coordination cannot be performed in a data area.
2) An existing interference coordination mechanism can only indicate an interference degree by using a PRB as a granularity. However, when a control channel, for example, an ePDCCH uses a data area, because the control channel can use a part of PRBs, a part of PRBs is either wasted or cannot be scheduled by a neighboring eNB with better channel quality in the resource to a control channel of a neighboring cell for use, which reduces the resource utilization.